Ideal (Job) Merits (Level 75)

It's pretty crazy of me, but I am making a mission to play all 20 jobs available in FFXI among four characters I have on two separate accounts.
Slowly but surely a cluster of them are making their way to 75 and some of them; heck, most of them I haven't even taken past subjob levels, so I need some advice on what would be the ideal merit setup for each specific job.
Bear in mind I specifically mean the job specific merit categories and the HP/MP, Combat Skills, Attributes, Magic Skills and Others should have no influence on any of it.
Also bear in mind I have not bothered to do anything Abyssea related and have no intention to any time soon. I doubt that would highly influence merits, but it is worth noting nevertheless.

Here's what I mustered up from just general thinking; so feel free to correct me or cross examine my choices:

Warrior
5/5 Berserk Recast
5/5 Double Attack Rate
5/5 Warrior Charge
1/5 Tomahawk
4/5 Savagery

Monk
5/5 Counter Rate
5/5 Kick Attack Rate
1/5 Formless Strikes
4/5 Invigorate
5/5 Penance

White Mage
5/5 Cure Cast time
5/5 Regen Potency
1/5 Martyr
3/5 Devotion
1/5 Protectra V
5/5 Shellra V
(I realize most pick Bar Spell Effect for large groups and difficult NMs, but most of my tasks are done in lowman groups, though the benefit is probably equally vital, and this can be discussed with subsequent posts)

Black Mage
5/5 Ice Magic Potency
5/5 Lightning Magic Potency
1/5 Flare II
3/5 Freeze II
1/5 Tornado II
1/5 Quake II
3/5 Burst II
1/5 Flood II

Red Mage
5/5 Convert Recast
3/5 Ice Magic Accuracy (Paralyze, Bind)
2/5 Wind Magic Accuracy (Silence, Gravity)
1/5 Dia III
5/5 Slow II
1/5 Paralyze II
1/5 Phalanx II
1/5 Bio II
1/5 Blind II

Thief
5/5 Sneak Attack Recast
5/5 Triple Attack Rate
4/5 Assassin's Charge
5/5 Feint
1/5 Aura Steal

Paladin
5/5 Sentinel Recast
5/5 Rampart Recast
1/5 Fealty
5/5 Chivalry
1/5 Iron Will
3/5 Guardian

Dark Knight
5/5 Last Resort Recast
5/5 Last Resort Effect
5/5 Dark Seal
5/5 Desperate Blows

Beastmaster
5/5 Reward Recast
5/5 Call Beast Recast
5/5 Beast Affinity
5/5 Beast Healer
*Fixed

Bard
5/5 Lullaby Recast
5/5 Minuet Effect
5/5 Nightingale
5/5 Troubadour

Ranger
5/5 Unlimited Shot Recast
5/5 Rapid Shot Rate
1/5 Stealth Shot
1/5 Flashy Shot
5/5 Snapshot
3/5 Recycle

Samurai
5/5 Store TP Effect
5/5 Meditate Recast
1/5 Shikikoyo
1/5 Blade Bash
3/5 Ikishoten
5/5 Overwhelm
(Not sure how the recent Hasso/Seigan with Zanshin update influences merits here, but I look forward to tests to see if Zanshin Rate with Ikishoten measure up well)

Ninja
5/5 Subtle Blow Effect
2/5 Hyoton (Ice)
3/5 Raition (Lightning)
4/5 Ninja Tool Expertise
1/5 Katon: San
1/5 Hyoton: San
1/5 Huton: San
1/5 Doton: San
1/5 Raiton: San
1/5 Suiton: San

Dragoon
5/5 Jump Recast
5/5 High Jump Recast
5/5 Deep Breathing
1/5 Angon
4/5 Empathy (Because I dual box, I will almost always have readily available buffs)
*Fixed

Summoner
5/5 Avatar Physical Accuracy
5/5 Avatar Magical Attack
1/5 Meteor Strike
1/5 Heavenly Strike
5/5 Wind Blade
1/5 Geocrush
1/5 Thunderstorm
1/5 Grand Fall

Blue Mage
5/5 Physical Potency
5/5 Magical Accuracy
1/5 Convergence
1/5 Diffusion
3/5 Enchainment
5/5 Assimilation
(I want to fiddle around with Convergence/Diffusion uses before getting rid of them for capped Enchainment)

Corsair
5/5 Phantom Roll Recast
5/5 Quick Draw Recast
5/5 Snake Eye
5/5 Fold
*Double Fixed

Puppetmaster
(Honestly no idea what to do here)

Dancer
5/5 Haste Samba Effect
5/5 Reverse Flourish Effect
1/5 Saber Dance
1/5 Fan Dance
5/5 No Foot Rise
3/5 Closed Position

Scholar
5/5 Helix Magic Acc/Atk
5/5 Max Sublimation
5/5 Enlightenment
5/5 Stormsurge

Thank you for your input everyone.

White Mage
5/5 Cure Cast time
5/5 Barspell Potency (regen is garbage and you'll never cast it)
5/5 Devotion
0/5 Protectra V(should be /sch and have accession)
5/5 Shellra V

Red Mage
5/5 Convert Recast
5/5 Ice Magic Accuracy (Paralyze, Bind)(best nuke for RDM, and wind potency is silly)

3/5 Dia III
5/5 Slow II
2/5 Paralyze II

Merit Phalanx II if you're playing RDM for salvage. Other merits are silly. Bio is only for solo RDM. And if you're solo RDM it's 5/5.

Thief
5/5 Sneak Attack Recast
5/5 Triple Attack Rate

5/5 Feint
4/5 Aura Steal
1/5 Ambush (If you're seriously soloing that much...)


Summoner
5/5 physical attack or magic accuracy
5/5 Avatar Magical Attack
5/5 Wind Blade
5/5 Thunderstorm(you don't need all bps at 75)

Corsair
5/5 Quick Draw Accuracy(XI's now do something to your roll recast, and you're not going to be rolling a bajillion roles for one party. :|)
5/5 Quick Draw Recast
5/5 Snake Eye
5/5 Fold
0/5 Winning Streak(why the *** would you merit this?)

WHM definitely want barspell effect. Don't need martyr either, put that extra one into devotion.

RDM should cap off ice magic, gravity and silence land easily on things you need it to.

For BST, feral howl sucks, lasts like 5 seconds and rarely does anything, can put that point into beast healer.

SAM take out shikikyo and put it into ishikoten.

NIN, would be better off maxing one element in group one with subtle blow, I did hyoton because it is cheapest spell to spam.

PUP: 5/5 Melee 5/5 Magic, for group one. 5/5 Melee helps all your automotons, no matter what frame and 5/5 magic gives them higher tier spells. Group two, I did 1 Role Reversal and Vetriloquy just to unlock for situational uses, 3 Fine Tuning and 5 Optimization.


I'd say something about DNC, but you don't have presto at 75 :(

This unless you're doing Salvage on SAM then I'd do 5/5 Blade Bash, 5/5 Overwhelm.

I guess I should note that I'm staying 75 for awhile eh?
I use regen all the time, and I won't have access to accession as white mage.

Take those points out of Diffusion and Convergence and put them into Enchainment. Diffusion/Convergence are hardly worth it at 5/5, let alone 1/5.

For DRG I personally find Deep Breathing to be very valuable:

5 Jump
5 High Jump
5 Deep breathing
2 angon
3 empathy

Can't think of many things where you need 5/5 angon, even 2 is a little eeeh.

I'd suggest 5/5 on Finale over 5/5 on Lullaby. With 4 lullabies you should never find yourself without one.

Finale on the other hand is useful to have available for any abilities that absorb every buff, or if they spam enhancing abilities/spells.

He's staying at 75 for the rest of ever. :x

He's staying 75, he only has two. Lullaby recast >>>>> Finale recast.

So? D:

Guess if he's gonna find some sort of retro LS or something that only deals in old zerggy content or something, but aside from that? :X

Dark Seal is pretty worthless, you are better off meriting Diabolic Eye for your T2 for DRK in case you need the Accuracy.

I would probably still disagree at 75 tbh. Different strokes for different folks though I guess.

Drop a merit in Bio3 and Blind2 for VW procs, same with Blade Bash for SAM.

I guess access to level 40 junk with your subjob really turned tables as far as merits went. I had no idea.

Will be 75 capped, so no VW.

Should have the title changed or put in giant bold letters you're going to be 75 forever.

Finale Recast would be great actually now that I think about it.
Generally my lullabies last long enough to recast it in a timely manner unless the mob is ridiculously hard and resistant. But mobs buff themselves at a ridiculous rate and my finale has a hard time keeping up.

Not forever, just for the majority of my playing period since that's where all the fun was for me. I'll delve into the high level craziness when I'm ready for it. I simply don't wanna burn out right now.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.


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yeah but a lot of merit choices have changed, and with no abyssea burning to get a lot of them, you'd rather not have to re-do them until you are already those high levels in abyssea.

that probably didn't make sense

Why else would he be staying at 75? @@; I mean I guess they probably can't zerg anything, so idk.


Was great for Dynamis (he's *** now for that), Einherjar, Salvage and Limbus to name a few things. Usually you have a RDM to dispel, and stuff that resists dark elemental dispels suck anyway, or only cast dreadspikes once every rarely.

How long does Angon last on it's own with one merit?
I figured the increased duration would be good for low-manning various NMs, but if Deep Breathing can be used as frequently as every 5 minutes, it might be more worthwhile to go that direction.

I mean even in a zerg, it was never worth going 5/5 in Angon. 2 or 3 at most.

@Arte: It lasts 30 seconds. 1:30 with max merits.

Y U SO CYNICAL?

will the people you play with be capped at 75 too?

Can force them to with level sync.

i know that. i was just curious if they are going to be level syncing.

I would for fun :D

Ignore me. Mostly bitter that I actually looked over the entire merit list before realizing you said '75 onry'.

Finale with merits and relevant song recast gear or enough haste gear should be coming back every 9 seconds or so, so for me that's pretty awesome.

You should be able to cap it at 75 with Sha'ir hands and haste.